[Senkumo Saga: Book of Blossoming]: The Phantom Glory

The world as we know it, our pearlescent, blue rock called Earth, was once a black mass of formless chaos, sunken in silence. Back in that timeless era, all things, both alive and inanimate, were formless. There were no physical bodies, no planets, no moons or stars. Only two intelligent beings existed in this black vacuum of chaos and space.

These were the first gods, the genderless, disembodied voices of the universe itself. There would be six generations of these gods, each generation acquiring more shape and form than the last. Then came the seventh generation –– Izanami, the first woman, and Izanagi, the first man. Together, the two gave form to the chaos around them, creating Earth, as well as the nation of Japan.

Izanami and Izanagi spawned many children together, but the two brightest among them were Amaterasu, the goddess of the sun, and Tsukuyomi, the god of the moon. This eighth generation founded the Shinto pantheon, the heavenly kingdom of Japan’s gods, atop the ruins of the seventh. The gods, in turn, gave rise to Man, and Man would worship them for their power.

A queen without a king, Amaterasu chose to form a union of love, like Izanami and Izanagi before her, with her brother, Tsukuyomi. Together, the two formed a seemingly ideal couple, holding all of heaven’s subjects in their divine thrall. Their union, born of shameless want, produced a daughter.

Tsukiakari.

Her name means moonlight. It was chosen to represent the union between the moon god and sun goddess. When the distant light of the sun hits the moon, it reflects this light back down to Earth, creating the serene, pale shimmer we know as moonlight. However, it wasn't long after Tsukiakari was born that the union between Amaterasu and Tsukuyomi shattered for all of Heaven to see. Their split would revive a karmic cycle of hatred that has plagued their pantheon since the birth of Japan, a cycle that would kill, maim, and forever change everyone involved.

This is the story of two countries, one on earth and the other in Heaven, that were swallowed by war, hatred, and traitorous ambition. It is the story of how both states devoured the individuality of its subjects and warped their sovereign’s sense of right and wrong. Most importantly, this is a story about the people that built those two nations and the individual souls that sacrificed everything for the wellbeing of their comrades. This is their tale, their tragedy, and their blood set unto the pages of history.

And it all started about six hundred years ago…